Category: Policy Page 26 of 35

I’ve a strong love/hate thing going on with the Olympics(TM).  In truth, it’s a giant scam to suck money out of the taxpayers of the host region, aggrandize the ancient old men running the governing bodies of the sports, and slap an ad on every surface visible to the human eye.  Sporting competition plays a tiny tiny role.  Certainly one that could be easily supported and conducted without the Olympics(TM).

That said, I’ll always rank living in the middle of the ’96 Olympics as one of the best times I’ve ever had.  I lived in the middle of all the major venues, and thanks to employment circumstances, had a bucket full of tickets.  I saw basketball, fencing, and badminton (the best, by far) medal matches.  Wandered around Centennial Park in the most intoxicating atmosphere – all of the crass commercialism around us couldn’t begin to dampen a collective realization that the world was hanging out together, and having a fantastic time doing it.

So I’ll rail against the Olympics in general, but I’ll show up for the personal experience in a heartbeat, given the chance.

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All that said, I think that the world’s reaction to China hosting the Olympics is important, but I have yet to personally sort what I think is the best course of action.  I have a lot of sympathy for what Sally Jenkins is saying here.  For me, it should go without saying that China’s treatment of Tibet is appalling, and ought to be condemned (and not in that half-assed press release way). Further, I think the Olympics really shouldn’t have ended up in Beijing – it gives China (yet another) chance to fake its way into the world’s biggest markets under the guise of being Just Like Us and Nothing To Be Concerned About.

And it’s that last point that sends me in all sorts of contradictory directions. I want people to realize exactly how it is that China produces what it does for rest of the world. But I don’t want to do it in some sort of Lou Dobbs Xenophobia Special sort of way. Which then bounces me back to the other side of things – it would be good for the rest of the world to realize that China is a behemoth in world finances, and cannot be treated as some semi-relevant curiosity. I was in Shanghai a few years ago, and took an elevator up the Jin Mao Tower for a view of the city. And what did I see from the 88th floor? A city bigger than New York. China does need to be dealt with . . . and not just in a constructive manner (which is what every nation deserves, including Cuba), but a manner which takes its power and pettiness into account. While I’d personally be quite fine with the majority of Wal-Mart’s supply lines drying up overnight, I suspect it’s probably not the best thing for the US economy. So we ought to tread carefully. Just not obsequiously.

This James Fallows article, The $1.4 Trillion Question, should be read by every American. Why?

Through the quarter-century in which China has been opening to world trade, Chinese leaders have deliberately held down living standards for their own people and propped them up in the United States. This is the real meaning of the vast trade surplus—$1.4 trillion and counting, going up by about $1 billion per day—that the Chinese government has mostly parked in U.S. Treasury notes. In effect, every person in the (rich) United States has over the past 10 years or so borrowed about $4,000 from someone in the (poor) People’s Republic of China. Like so many imbalances in economics, this one can’t go on indefinitely, and therefore won’t. But the way it ends—suddenly versus gradually, for predictable reasons versus during a panic—will make an enormous difference to the U.S. and Chinese economies over the next few years, to say nothing of bystanders in Europe and elsewhere.

It’s incredibly hard not to quote the whole thing. In short, China affects the daily lives of Americans, and America affects the daily lives of the Chinese.  The Chinese are beginning to understand this, but Americans seem blissfully ignorant (if not of the relationship, then definitely the possibly consequences).  Seriously, take 15 minutes and give this a read. And then send the link to your friends.

Photo:  The (decidedly privileged) Bund, Shanghai, 2004